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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28784 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023

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"Men commit suicide more" -> "Women attempt suicide more"

One of the reasons men are more likely to complete suicide attempts than women is that men tend to use more lethal methods like guns and hanging which tend to result in a disfigured corpse, whereas women tend to want to leave behind an open casket-worthy corpse and hence use methods like overdosing which tend not to disfigure the corpse. One of the hottest takes I've ever seen is a tweet in which a woman argued that the reason men are more likely to commit suicide is because, unlike women, they don't care about traumatising their loved ones by spattering blood and brains all over their kitchen.

That's right: men committing suicide more than women is proof that women are more empathetic.

Seems plausible enough to me, but I guess your point is that it's in tension with the overall progressive stance that suicides are helpless victims.

I mean you're dead right. In some cases, the response to the cognitive dissonance-inducing reality of male suicide has been simply to deny it wholesale.

Oh wow, that article has yet another brilliant bit of statistical legerdemain.

The report found that suicides are responsible for half of all violent deaths in men and 71% of violent deaths in women.

The second number is higher, so clearly it's Women Most Affected! ...Except, of course, that the base rates are completely different. Slicing the data this way means that the more men die violently, then the more this makes women look victimized.

And when I see articles like this, I can't help but wonder. I usually assume that journalists are stupid rather than actively malicious. But the author had to have done some research to get the stats she's playing with, right? I'm sure she's living in a bubble, but even so it seems hard to imagine that she's never encountered the fact that suicide rates are actually higher for men. The article so carefully tap-dances around this fact, it seems like it has to be a purposeful omission ... which is just so damn evil. It makes me sad.

Alternative being that men are choosing more lethal means because they don’t anticipate a last minute rescue. I’ve known a woman with mental illness who’s attempted suicide several times — and every time she did it, she’d call someone or attempt in such a way that she’d be discovered quickly. In other words, the attempt isn’t exactly an attempt, it’s a cry for help and attention. People who want to die will die.

I’ve known a woman with mental illness who’s attempted suicide several times — and every time she did it, she’d call someone or attempt in such a way that she’d be discovered quickly.

I know a borderline woman meeting this description exactly. It's gotten to the point where when a mutual friend receives a text from her, she flinches because she assumes there's some new crisis afoot. It's terribly sad.

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